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Business News Deals Digital Labels & Publishers
IMPEL confirms pan-European deal with Amazon
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 12 February 2020
IMPEL, the consortium of independent music publishers that exists to negotiate direct licences with digital music platforms, has announced a new deal with Amazon covering is various music streaming products in Europe.
Confirming that deal, the organisation’s CEO Sarah Williams said yesterday: “Because of the amazing repertoire its members represent, IMPEL is an essential licensing partner for any streaming service that wishes to include the world’s most popular songs on its platform. We’re very happy to have signed this deal with Amazon”.
IMPEL began life as an initiative of the UK’s Music Publishers Association in 2010. It was set up in response to the big five publishers – Sony, Universal, Warner, Kobalt and BMG – starting to license their Anglo-American song catalogues to streaming services directly rather than via the collective licensing system (albeit in partnership with the Anglo-American collecting societies, because of complexities regarding the ownership of song rights).
It meant that smaller publishers could go the same route, even if they didn’t have the scale or resources to start negotiating their own direct deals. Then, in 2018, IMPEL was spun off as a standalone organisation. And while some of its original members have since opted to do their own deals directly, the consortium still includes the likes of the Bucks, Beggars, Reservoir, Kassner, ABKCO, Truelove, Faber and Mute music publishing businesses.
Indicating that the organisation is currently busy negotiating a bunch more deals, Williams added: “Watch this space for more major agreements in the near future”.
